What can we do to change the minds of decision makers and people in general to actually do something about preparing for the forthcoming economic/energy crises (the ones after this one!)?
fuzzy wrote:I appreciate the light touch in moderating.
Indeed, the vast majority forums are too heavily moderated in my opinion. Generally, I'm happy for folk to post what they want - it just saddens me when people given the ultimate freedom, without the social baggage that comes along with face to face chats with friends, family and colleagues etc. choose to be abusive. C'est la vie.
I do find people 'tend' to be more polite when not posting anonymously, which is why Facebook groups tend to be nicer, despite the platform's shortcomings.
Light touch moderating is all very well, or perhaps it's not, but it results in good people leaving the forum. I stopped posting for a long while because of the level of gratuitious abuse from two particular posters. I thught that one had left, but when I returned I discovered it was just a name change. However, the abuse had reduced (but not stopped). If you are going to tolerate the agression, at least change the registration conditions to say you permit abuse and agression, instead of saying it is not acceptable, then tolerating it so the result is good posters leave.
I think the expression might be ".......... man up!"
Why, oh why, do you suggest people go to facebook where everything is more polite, but you then permit what, by implication, is unacceptable, to occur on PS?
To become an extremist, hang around with people you agree with. Cass Sunstein
Aggression takes many forms Woodburner. You appear to be merely identifying that which may be trivially identified in the absence of the context of the less trivially identifiable kind in which, arguably, the trivially identifiable kind may be seen to occur.
You possibly understand what you have written, but the meaning is not clear to me. If you are saying people can be agressive without it being apparent to the casual observer, then it might be just arguing a pont of view. That is what a debate is. I don't find that objectionable. When the post contains profanities together with and personal insults, then that I do not see as acceptable. You can disagree with someones point of view but that doesn't mean it has to contain insults which wouldn't be found (apparently) on facebook.
There have been a lot of instances of agression which was counterproductive regarding the EU referendum. Remainers branding the leavers with direct or implied labels such as morinic, right wing, facist, etc, and the leavers returning their own version of insults. There are problems coming, as we know, which are coming regardless of what people voted, but now there are more which exist only because of the referendum. This has resulted primarily from "leaver types" (IMO morons), who have taken to arson and direct attacks on people who do not have sufficient (in their view) rights to be in the UK.
This may be because of frustration, but that should be directed at the politicians who have allowed the problem to exist, not at the people who happen to be the subject of the "discussion", or at others who happen to be discussing it.
Last edited by woodburner on 09 Jul 2016, 09:15, edited 2 times in total.
To become an extremist, hang around with people you agree with. Cass Sunstein
Woodburner, this forum has handled the EU debate better than any UK based forum I have seen. Biff seems to have received the most grief over recent months. If you want to see what opinionated, spoiled, Southern, pompous zealots [with a sympathetic moderator] can do to a forum have a look here:
If someone constantly implies that the underlying motive of the arguments of others on, say, the issue of migration and border controls (which has and continues to be the primary source of antagonism on this board) is racist, despite a lack of racism in any of those post and despite constant denials of that by those same others, then that is an act of aggression, irrespective of the "politeness" or otherwise of the implication. We all know that concepts such as racism are cultural trigger concepts in our culture, such that to be labelled a racist is to be avoided at all costs. Thus, when it is thrown about in any debate without material cause, it is usually in order to shut down legitimate debate.
THAT is an act of aggression and deserves a response in kind and, as far as I am concerned, if the response is overt and unambiguous, as opposed to covert and insinuative, that is merely because it is more honest.
Fuzzy, I don't want to see bigoted and poorly reasoned verbiage, but neither do I want to see overt abuse, even if the surrounding words convey some reasoned point.
Little John, I agree that levelling a charge of "racist" at someone is agressive, unhelpful, bigoted and pointless. At the same time I don't agree that a response in kind will help the respondent's argument. In the case of claimed racism, most of the accusations are from bigots (whoever they might be) who have a problem forming an argument, and "racist" is a cheap shot.
Like many nowadays, I meet people from several European and non-European countries. Most of them I find it a pleasure to meet, some I don't, but there are UN nationals I don't find it a pleasure to meet. I don't agree the current levels of immigration are sustainable, even in the short term. IMO nobody in their right mind would see current immigration as sustainable, indeed, if we had no immigration the present population in the UK is sustainable. If anyone thinks that is racist, they are unrealistic, and are unable to form a coherent argument, but if the response is to lash out with abuse, the argument is lost and so is the support of others.
To become an extremist, hang around with people you agree with. Cass Sunstein
I don't agree Woodburner. The plain fact, is, there has been a growing Orwellian cultural fascism in this country that has been repeated across other western nations where it has effectively become a thought-crime to discuss or even think about certain issues. In that context, the only rationale response has been to lash out until, finally, the dam appears to be breaking.
It is also inevitably true, sadly, that in amongst this backlash, the real racists and bigots will seek to have their day in the sun. Hence the rise of the far right across much of Europe. But, again, this is the direct result of the cultural suppression of real and legitimate concerns by the labeling of them as racist or bigoted, such that the only groups willing to touch them are the racists and bigoted political parties.
Lashing out is not a useful response, and there is no "dam" to break. Lashing out seems to be very close to civil riots, and mostly the ones who had no argument that suffer. The perpetrators just treat it as nearly sport and feel satisfied they have had a riot. It hasn't helped anyone else.
To become an extremist, hang around with people you agree with. Cass Sunstein
It is certainly the innocent who will mainly suffer.
'Orwellian cultural fascism' is what happens after we have had 68 years of mass immigration in the UK. This has been dressed up with every form of propaganda over the years. Whitehall and the City must have breathed a sigh of relief when the media branded Enoch Powell a bigot back in 1969 for a flowery speech which didn't actually refer to 'rivers of blood'..
Now 3 generations have passed and few bother to question mass immigration - eg: If a culture has arranged marriages, this has both good and bad consequences, so we accept it. If you are going to marry someone you have never met anyway - why is a system allowed in the UK where the arranged person is from 5000 miles away? A person who has no right to move here except due to the marriage? Over the years I have seen pompous privately educated TV presenters admiring the quaint anthropology of paying professional arrangers in Asia to find people for UK immigration! Who could have guessed we would have low integration ghettoes with massive family social issues which are hidden in a community by speaking a foreign language?
The entire purpose of mass imigration, including from the EU is the fear that our population, post WWII, has not increased net of immigration, and therefore all those rentiers who would lose out [the descendents of our Norman conquerers] chose a different path for the UK.
As I read it it was a speech about the right to discriminate between different people on the basis of race. He wished to retain this right and the government was proposing legislation to made race based discrimination illegal.
He defends, for example, a woman who wanted not to rent out property to black people.
Although he does not say "rivers of blood". In fact he refers only to a single river.
He does say:
As I look ahead, I am filled with foreboding; like the Roman, I seem to see "the River Tiber foaming with much blood."
We can now look on the speech in retrospect (it was 1968). Over the years there have been riots. Going back many centuries there have been riots.
Much of the immigration law has in fact been changed, but race discrimination remains unlawful.
I do not myself see that his predictions were right. He was as I see it predicting a race war between Afro Caribbeans and White people.
The referendum did not concern the negotiating position of the UK following the triggering of Article 50, nor the possibility that no agreement could be reached within the stipulated two year period for negotiation, nor the emerging reality that the Article 50 negotiations will concern only the manner of exit from the EU and not future economic relationships.
This really wasn't explained by either side. Both sides "lied by omission", or didn't understand the situation. Cameron claimed Article 50 would be triggered on the Friday after Leave won, and that he would remain in power, both claims turning out to be absolute lies. Farage would have triggered article 50 on Friday morning, but never had the power to do so. Boris and Gove didn't believe that Leave would win, so didn't have a plan. Nobody at all explained the relevance of the wording/details of Article 50, because it was in the interest of neither side to do so. But it is crucial.
I voted leave, and I still want the UK to leave the EU unless the EU makes concessions on freedom of movement. But I fully recognise that triggering Article 50 without extracting the framework of a deal from the EU beforehand would be suicidal. Far better to remain within the EU and use our existing powers to extract a better deal.
The biggest "lie" from both sides during the campaign was the lie of ommission that the existing legal framework for leaving the EU is stacked against the leaving nation. And that makes the biggest liars, somewhat paradoxically, the Remain campaign. Why didn't they explain this?
What framework of what deal UE? What exactly does the UK stand to lose or gain if article 50 is invoked now or next year? If we leave we stop making contributions. If we leave and no deal is struck on fishing waters, we make full claim to the waters that are ours. So, what is the EU going to do about it? If they spit their toys out of the pram and put massive tariffs in place or otherwise make it difficult to trade, the biggest losers in that are European workers who would soon make their feelings felt at the ballot box. The EU sells far more to us than the other way around. I would like it spelled out exactly what this sword of Damocles is that is supposedly hanging over us if we invoked article 50 right now.
Also, so far as EU laws that have been integrated into UK law are concerned, they obviously cannot be chucked out overnight for practical reasons, nor might we want to chuck them all out. the point is, they would become UK laws, subject to repeal under UK legal and parliamentary procedures. Thus, they could remain an on the UK books until and unless any of them stand in the way of doing things the way we want to do them. at which point we deal with them on a case by case basis. Over time, such laws would evolve back to reflect our own national trajectory.
In short, in what way is the existing legal framework for leaving the EU stacked against the leaving nation?
Last edited by Little John on 11 Jul 2016, 23:46, edited 1 time in total.
All those things are true whether or not we decide to play awkward before triggering Article 50.
The bottom line is this: the people who drafted and agreed on Article 50 didn't want anybody to use it.
Our negotiating postion after a Leave victory in the referendum, without a subsequent referendum and without triggering Article 50, is much stronger than our negotiating position after triggering Article 50. The problem is that the moment we trigger Article 50 we give away all our existing powers and rights without getting anything in return, but if we make life difficult for the EU before triggering Article 50 then they are highly likely to give us a much better deal.
I think we need to hang on in there for a while longer. As soon as the EU gets a whiff that the British public understand the situation, they will suddenly be very compliant in doing a deal to get this sorted!!!
